Right-wing UDC strategist was not told ahead of search for breaking banking secrecy laws
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Zurich public prosecutor Andreas Brunner says “pertinent” material was found during a search of the home and office of Christoph Blocher, a UDC People’s Party leader. Blocher was not told in advance that his home and office would be searched on suspicion that he had broken banking secrecy laws, news agency ats reports.
Brunner does say, according to the agency and other Swiss media, that Blocher’s attorney was told Monday evening his client was under suspicion and would be called in for questioning.
When the attorney said that Blocher would use his parliamentary immunity, Brunner and the police, who were not convinced the immunity applies to the case, moved quickly to do the search Tuesday.
Blocher is suspected of breaking Swiss banking secrecy laws in December when he was the recipient of information about the private bank account of Philipp Hildebrand, then chairman of the Swiss central bank, the SNB. He then told Micheline Calmy-Rey, who was the Swiss president in 2011, that Hildebrand may have acted illegally in buying and selling currency. Hildebrand subsequently resigned to allow an investigation to go ahead; his name was cleared but in February the SNB changed its rules for members of the board’s own financial transactions, to improve transparency.
Vienna comes out number one, Paris is 30 and London 38, Geneva sixth safest
Bern's new bear park on the riverfront; Bern is the world's second safest city in 2011
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Mercer’s list of top cities in the world in terms of quality of living shows three Swiss cities in the top 10 in 2011 and three German cities, but Austria’s Vienna remains in the number one slot.
Zurich is second, Geneva and Bern are eighth and ninth respectively, with Munich and Dusseldorft fourth and fifth and Frankfurt in seventh place.
Completing the top 10: Auckland, New Zealand is third, Vancouver, Canada ties with Dusseldorf for fifth and Copenhagen, Denmark ties with Bern for ninth place.
Personal safety puts Bern and Zurich in world’s top five
The theme of this year’s Mercer report is personal safety as a result of upheavals in many parts of the world and growing concern on the part of companies and organizations about the safety of their employees. “The information and data obtained through the Quality of Living Reports (the “Reports”) are for information purposes only and are intended for use by multi-national organizations and government agencies. They are not designed or intended to use as the basis for foreign investment or tourism,” London-based Mercer notes in publishing its rankings.
Geneva’s media reports of a less safe city at odds with sixth-safest city in the world rank
Tourists snapping iPhone shots of the jet d'eau in Geneva, sixth safest city in the world
The Mercer survey ranks Geneva sixth in terms of personal safety worldwide, a number that will reassure Geneva’s authorities, who were in a for a barrage of media fire earlier in the year for a perceived decline in safety.
Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, whose home is in Geneva and whose political career as a Socialist Party member was built in the city, said Monday that a joint federal-cantonal commission she pushed for earlier in the year is reviewing safety in the city.
It is currently taking an inventory of the situation, she said, without giving a date for the commission to provide its report.
But the federal government, which contributes CHF50 million directly to support “international Geneva”, is “concerned” about reports that the city is less safe than it used to be, she told journalists at a press conference.
Calmy-Rey is retiring from the federal government this week, but she said Monday she expects to remain active in politics.
Swiss president says concern over legality of UK, German deals is EC’s “internal” problem
Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey in Geneva 28 November
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland is looking for an agreement with the US that will draw a line on the past, where banks and US tax fraud or evasion is concerned, Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey said Monday 28 November. It should include an agreed method for the US to collect tax money in the future while Swiss banking secrecy laws are respected.
“We don’t want to be a place for people who are trying to evade taxes. But we want to sort out past issues, once and for all, and put some order into [things],” she said, referring to ongoing problems between Swiss banks and the US tax arm, the IRS.
“And in the same agreement, we want to deal with the future,” for example through the kind of withholding tax agreement Switzerland struck in August with German and the UK.
“That, in essence, is our position, and it’s the same as it was with the UK and Germany.”
Her remarks were made at a press conference in Geneva Monday afternoon, 28 November where the president was presenting an overview of International Geneva, and its growth in size and importance in the past decade. She earlier attended the opening of the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva.
EU tax commissioner suggests to UK paper the EU might sue Britain
Switzerland, under the UK and German agreements, which have yet to be ratified, is to collect withholding taxes on transactions by financial institutions, then turn over the money to the other countries without divulging the name of the account owners.
But European Union Tax Commissioner Algirdas Semeta told the Financial Times in an interview published Monday morning that he believes Britain and Germany went too far in signing their own bilateral tax agreements with Switzerland. The FT writes that:
“Brussels is threatening to sue Britain unless ministers significantly alter a landmark tax deal with Switzerland, in a dispute that will cast doubt over the £4bn to £7bn of expected proceeds for the Treasury. European Commission lawyers concluded that the bilateral deal, which recovers billions of unpaid taxes in return for protecting the prized secrecy of the Swiss banking system, is in breach of European Union laws that are tougher on tax evasion.”
Micheline Calmy-Rey, Swiss president
Calmy-Rey says this is an internal matter for the European Union, and it’s not for Switzerland to comment on who is competent in this area, the EU or its member states.
Switzerland and the European Union have a tax agreement covering “taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments”, signed in 2004 and revised in 2008 and again in January of this year.
The FT reports indicates that the EU’s pressure on Britain and Germany to renegotiate their deals with Switzerland is causing some friction.
Whether or not Switzerland would be open to new negotiations remains unclear, although the Swiss Bankers Association CEO Claude-Alain Margelisch said last week that “our view is that there can be no renegotiation” and the organization’s priority is to see that all parties are convinced that the agreements are true and fair compromises.
US talks could create new agreement, but form is still unclear
The US-Swiss talks are widely expected to be completed within weeks if not days, but the ultimate form an agreement might take is not yet clear, Mario Tuor, spokesperson for the Swiss Federal Tax Office told GenevaLunch Monday evening. The two countries have a treaty dating back to 1996 that covers tax fraud, still in place, and a new treaty covering tax evasion, which goes before the Swiss parliament in December 2011.
Tuor repeated Calmy-Rey’s assertion that Switzerland also wants an agreement which covers the banks not currently being investigated by the US Justice Department for helping Americans evade US taxes. “The form [it would take] is not yet clear. But it is clear now that we will not need a parliamentary agreement,” which a treaty would require. “We won’t need an agreement that calls for a treaty because it will be based on existing law.”
Switzerland and the US signed a treaty in 2009 that covered an American request for assistance with UBS 4,450 bank accounts, whose owners had not been identified, thus putting the demand outside the existing legal framework.
The talks are raising questions among many Americans who live overseas and who are grappling with the implications for them of tax reporting changes that were designed to prevent fraud by wealthy Americans who live in the US and have offshore accounts.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Jebril El-Waalfarvi, a representative of Libya’s new opposition group, the National Transition Council (NTC), met Wednesday with Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, who also heads the foreign affairs ministry. The NTC was formed in the eastern Libyan city of Beghazi 27 February.
El-Waalfarvi presented the group’s political programme and a list of its needs, part of a European tour by NTC representatives, who have also made a presentation to the European Union.
Calmy-Rey expressed Switzerland’s concern over the impact on the population of Libya’s civil war and expressed Switzerland’s commitment to providing diplomatic and humanitarian assistance to help the Libyan population.
2011 Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, currently Foreign Affairs minister
Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf will become vice-president in 2011
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland continues to improve its score where women in politics are concerned, with the election by the parliament Wednesday 8 December of Micheline Calmy-Rey, Socialist, as president of the country for 2011 and Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf of the center-right Conservative Democratic Party as vice-president. The Swiss presidency is a one-year term that rotates among the members of the seven federal councillors who make up the cabinet, with parliament selecting the leader.
Calmy-Rey, who served as president in 2007, will follow another woman, Doris Leuthard, president in 2010.
Swiss media are focusing on the fact that Calmy-Rey received the lowest number of votes since 1919, which TSR public television attributes to her tendency to act alone, “notably in managing the affair with Libya, which irritated more than one member of parliament.”
Moritz Leuenberger, Switzerland's Socialist minister for the environment, energy, transport, resigns
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – Moritz Leuenberger, Socialist Party member who has been one of Switzerland’s seven federal councillors for the past 15 years, announced Friday morning that he will step down at the end of 2010. Leuenberger, 63, from Zurich, has headed one department, the Detec (environment, transport and energy) during his tenure and his left-leaning views have had a significant impact on the country’s approach to climate change.
He insisted in a press conference that journalists should not seek to find tactical reasons, that after 15 years as part of the government, he feels the time has come to leave. Leuenberger was scheduled to be the next president, taking up the post that rotates among the federal councillors in January 2011. Micheline Calmy-Rey, also a Socialist, from Geneva, will now become president in 2011, for the second time.
Joseph Deiss - UN Photo/JC McIlwaine
(GenevaLunch) - Swiss Joseph Deiss was elected president of the UN General Assembly in New York Friday 11 June. He takes up the role 14 September and will preside over the summit on the Millennium Goals 20-22 September.
Deiss served as president of Switzerland in 2004 and as the country’s foreign minister, where he led efforts to have Switzerland join the United Nations.
The role of the president of the General Assembly is to ensure that meetings run correctly and in an orderly fashion, according to Bern. “He can exercise an influence on the General Assembly’s agenda. In addition, in the event of diverging views among the member states, he assumes the role of facilitator in the search for a consensus position.”
Deiss will serve a one-year term.
Brussels, Belgium (GenevaLunch) - Max Goeldi, Swiss businessman held in Libya for 19 months, should be allowed to go home, the European Union told Libyan officials Thursday 25 March. The office of Cecilia Malmström, European commissioner for security and internal affairs, Thursday 25 March praised Switzerland for making a gesture to resolve the impasse with Libya by saying it would lift a visa ban on some Libyans. Her spokesperson invited Libya to respond by “immediately freeing Max Goeldi.”
Doris Leuthard, Switzerland's president, is serving a one-year term
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The seven-member ruling council of the Swiss government, the Federal Council, has proposed that the presidency, which rotates among them, become a two-year rather than one-year post. The rationale is to give the president the opportunity to complete projects and to take better advantage of experience gained. The impetus to reform the system did not come from the Federal Council itself but from Parliament, which asked it in 2004 to propose reforms.
President Doris Leuthard, who met with journalists Thursday before the council announced its news, was asked if it is sometimes difficult to manage with a seven-person cabinet that shares power. She laughed and remarked that group decisions are never easy.
Doris Leuthard, Swiss president in 2010
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Doris Leuthard becomes president of Switzerland in 2010. The 46-year-old PDC (Christian Democrat) member was elected comfortably (153 of 187 votes) by parliament for the top job, a one-year post that is rotated among the seven cabinet members, the Swiss Federal Council. She is the only member of the council not to have yet held the post. She was in line for the job, as vice-president in 2009, but nevertheless needed the approval of the Federal Assembly, parliament’s two houses. Leuthard becomes the youngest president since 1934.
Leuthard is the third woman to serve as president of Switzerland: Ruth Dreifuss was the first, in 1999 and Micheline Calmy-Rey the second, in 2007.
SBA CEO Urs P Roth
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – EU citizens with bank accounts in Switzerland will pay a withholding tax on income from all investments, not just on savings income as at present, if a proposal from the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) goes ahead. The group, at its annual meeting in Zurich 17 September suggested that the money collected would be transferred to the respective countries’ tax authorities without disclosing the name of the bank customer. The SBA proposal would extend withholding tax on EU citizens to include dividend income generated by stocks and mutual funds, as well as capital gains.
Switzerland has levied a withholding tax on its own and EU citizens since 2005, but it covers only income from certain types of investment, principally from bonds.
Updated 09:45 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The OECD should provide clarification about how its tax haven list was drawn up, and it needs to be more transparent about “how the standard on the exchange of information for tax purposes” will be implemented, Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz has written to Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). Merz Wednesday told Swiss German radio DRS that he will be attending a June OECD finance meeting in Berlin. The Swiss president argues in his letter that the role of the OECD and other bodies in setting criteria, deciding how they are applied and to whom, and in monitoring tax information exchanges is unclear.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s finance minister, who had emergency quintuple coronary bypass surgery 20 September, will return to work 3 November.
